


the hands loom heavy

by attheborder



Category: Banished (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hand Jobs, M/M, Pity Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:03:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Will could not make things anew, but he could fix them. So when it appeared that Private Buckley’s prick was stirring in his breeches, reacting to nothing more than the presence of a warm body so near to him, rather than being disturbed, Will saw it as just another broken thing to mend.
Relationships: Private Buckley/William Stubbins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	the hands loom heavy

**Author's Note:**

> for those not in the know ... banished is a mediocre BBC drama from 2015 cancelled after one season, adam nagaitis plays an incel marine private and david walmsley plays an illiterate blacksmith. they do not share a single scene together but clearly that wasn't going to stop me.

Will Stubbins had never really hated anyone. Not the watchman who’d caught him, not the judge who’d sentenced him. Not the cruel quartermaster of the transport ship, not the capricious governor or the strict major.

But now, now. Now he was filled with it: hatred of his wife; hatred of the man who’d taken her from him; hatred of Captain Collins, without whom he’d have been able to go on living in happy ignorance; hatred most immediately and violently of that bastard Letters Molloy, whom he had sworn to kill.

He was drunk, and he was exhausted, and his body cried out for rest, but he could not sleep, lest he dream of Agnes.

Stumbling through the camp as the sun rose, he came upon the barracks tent. The soldiers had gone to muster down by the beach; when he looked inside, he saw only a solitary figure sitting in a cot at the far wall, silhouetted by the morning light filtering through the canvas.

Will did not hate Private Buckley—many did, but Will did not. And he had a desperate need to feel something other than hatred or betrayal or grief, right now—pity would do, in a pinch.

He approached down the length of the tent; came to stand in front of Buckley’s cot.

“Get out.”

Will did not move. He gazed down at Buckley: none of the girls would’ve washed his face for him, so he’d probably tried it himself, and there was still blood crusted over the bridge of his nose and all around his mouth.

“What’s wrong with you?” said Buckley. “I said, get _out.”_

“You look terrible.”

“If you’ve come to give me a message from Tommy Barrett, I don’t want to hear it,” Buckley said, glaring up at Will through swollen, red-rimmed eyes.

“I have not.” He sat down on the cot next to Buckley. It was more comfortable by far than the ones they had in the convicts’ barracks. “Why’d you do it?” Will asked. “Why’d you go and tell him?”

Buckley’s fists were balled up in his lap—knuckles bare and unmarked. Tommy hadn’t been lying: the private really hadn’t landed a single punch.

“He’d lied to me,” Buckley said. Will said nothing; he waited. Buckley seemed to find the silence intolerable, so he started up again. “It was a dirty trick. I wanted to punish him for it—I wanted to have her again. It felt so _good—_ d’you know—she was the only one I ever—there’s been nobody else, and I wanted—I thought I could—”

He devolved into babbling, swaying there on the edge of his cot. Will was not quite sure what to do. He did know that he was going to be hanged himself for killing Letters before long, anyway—if he showed some Christian charity before that, then he might not have to spend too long in the company of the Devil, after he died.

The second he touched him, one solid hand to his shoulder, Buckley collapsed against Will, sobbing into his chest, awful little croaking gasps that left Will feeling confused and slightly embarrassed on behalf of the private.

Not sure what else to do, he rubbed small circles into the back of Buckley’s shirt, feeling the ribs there, as prominent as any convict’s—did the other soldiers steal his food, then, or somehow ensure he got less?

It had been a long, long time since Will had held someone. He did not dally with convict women; he had been loyal these long years, faithfully solitary, and for what? For Agnes to have forgotten about him, before they even sailed?

It mattered less that the man in his arms was a man, or that he was horrible, and had done many horrible things, than that he was simply _there._ And in a great deal of pain, that much was clear.

Will could not make things anew, but he could fix them. So when it appeared that Private Buckley’s prick was stirring in his breeches, reacting to nothing more than the presence of a warm body so near to him, rather than being disturbed, Will saw it as just another broken thing to mend.

“No wonder you were driven to such acts,” said Will dryly. He could only distantly imagine the torture it must be for a man of this appetite to be surrounded by abundance, and forever forbidden from finding relief in it.

“Don’t mock me,” Buckley spat, through gritted teeth, shifting uncomfortably where he sat, but seemingly unwilling to remove himself entirely from Will’s company.

“I’m not,” said Will. “I am simply remarking. You’re a sensitive man, Private Buckley. Seems to me you could use some care.”

At that, Buckley hunched forward, wrapping his arms around his shoulders, as if to protect himself from some imagined threat. Will tugged him easily towards him, until he was leaning once more against the broad bulk of Will’s chest. His head tipped back onto Will’s shoulder, and his still-shining eyes stared sightlessly upwards, mouth set in a grim line as Will moved a hand up his thigh.

“Close your eyes,” Will said. “Pretend I’m her, if you like.”

“Elizabeth?” Buckley laughed, a harsh sound. “With those hands?”

“Well. Maybe not, then.”

But Buckley did close his eyes. And he let Will carefully unbutton his breeches; and he let Will draw his stiffening prick out, and slowly stroke him, gently rolling the foreskin back from the head and swiping over his slit, eliciting a weak keen from Buckley’s injured mouth.

No wonder none of the girls would have him; his prick was an unattractive little thing, his stones uneven and furred over with an abundance of red hair; and he smelled of piss and rancid sweat.

He fucked gratefully into Will’s firm, welcoming grip, one hand twisting in the sheets and the other clutching helpless at Will’s knee.

As Will moved his hand mechanically up and down Buckley’s reddened shaft, every so often twisting overtop and feeling a spurt of slick against his fingers, he refused to let himself think of his own wife, and how her hands had been so wonderful at this act—refused to let himself think of any of the women before her, or the men in between—it was only this sad wreck of a boy that he would let himself consider, in all of his unfortunate components.

“Yes, yes—please,” Buckley was whimpering, “Elizabeth—oh, Jesus, yes—”

 _Oh, shut up,_ Will thought, and clapped his free hand over Buckley’s mouth; Buckley strained against him, but Will was much stronger. When he increased his efforts at Buckley’s prick the private seemed to forget he was muted, or just cease to care, panting hotly into Will’s palm and frantically jerking his hips as he neared his crisis.

As Buckley emptied himself over Will’s hand, spending in long hot pulses, it was almost as if Will were spending himself, despite his own prick soft and unmoved between his legs. He felt freed by this strange act—the heavy dark clouds in his mind were clearing, cast aside by a fresh wind. In just a few hours, he would call the convicts to turn, in a voice loud and clear and unafraid.

Now, he waited for Buckley to turn around and shove him off the bed; to spit at his feet, call him a disgusting sodomite; or to swear to report him, if he did not return to service him every night from now on; or maybe even just to begin weeping again, maudlin as an actress.

But he lay perfectly still against Will, and Will tilted his head to see his face and realized he’d fallen asleep. Battered and bruised as he was, there was a certain beauty to him—when he woke up, and opened his mouth, he would be ugly again, but for now he was at peace, and had a face that could be kind, if one didn’t know better.

***

**Author's Note:**

> watch banished 7 episodes on amazon prime for lots of private buckley getting beat up and sobbing about it content
> 
> i am on [twitter](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe) and [tumblr,](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com) undergoing a constant tozer crisis


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